The Radical Martin Luther King We Do Not Know

Joe Chuman Addresses NY Society for Ethical Culture

Thursday, January 18, 2018

In an address to the New York Society for Ethical Culture, ISHR Professor Dr. Joe Chuman looked beyond Martin Luther King, Jr.'s critique of racism and white supremacy and spoke on his greater vision of American society, including his condemnation of American militarism, imperialism, and materialism and the perils of capitalism.

In his address, Chuman states that while King was focally concerned with ending legal segregation in America, this was part of a broader design seeking a more revolutionary transformation of American society that must address the underlying structures and institutions that give rise to racism.

Chuman also asserts that King interpreted the civil rights movement to abolish Jim Crow laws in the South, and thereby achieve the legal emancipation of African-Americans, as the American analogue to anti-colonialist struggles going on simultaneously in the Africa and Asia.